Aam Aadmi Party’s MP Raghav Chadha today gave Suspension of Business notice under Rule 267 in Rajya Sabha to discuss the amendments in laws to ensure stringent punishment, like life imprisonment or something even stricter, to culprits in sacrilege incidents. While Chadha does not seem to have specified what he means by ‘stricter’, one can easily draw conclusions that punishment stricter than life imprisonment would likely be death sentence.
Chadha is an MP from Punjab where AAP formed the government earlier this year. AAP has been accused of romancing the Khalistani elements which leaves India in a vulnerable position since they are ruling government in a state that shares its border with Pakistan. Pakistan has been actively spreading terrorism in India and abroad and has been giving strategic and tacit support to Khalistani elements along with Islamist jihadis to ruin India’s peace and harmony.
Unfortunately, this move by Chadha comes exactly a year after two men were lynched to death in two separate incidents of sacrilege in Punjab. In 2021, in a span of 24 hours, on December 18 in Amritsar and December 19 in Kapurthala mobs took to street to take law into their own hands and gave a ‘stricter’ punishment than life imprisonment for ‘sacrilege’. 2021 saw six lynching cases linked to sacrilege of Sikh Holy Books and symbols in Punjab. Reportedly there have been over 200 cases of sacrilege in the state since 2015.
While some condemned these killings, a large number of people kept mum on these murders. There is even a section of people that is supporting ‘instant justice’. And now the move by Chadha will only further embolden the mobs. That is how mob justice works. They think because the law allows death sentence over ‘sacrilege’ or ‘blasphemy’, it is okay to kill.
Case in point, our neighbour Pakistan. Studies have shown that the stricter laws on blasphemy has only done more harm and has encouraged lynching. A 2016 Amnesty report (who would’ve thought), exposed how stricter blasphemy laws in Pakistan are used to enable abuse against minorities. In its report “As good as dead”: The impact of the blasphemy laws in Pakistan, Amnesty said how people accused of blasphemy struggle to establish their innocence. Even if a person is acquitted of the charges against them and released, usually after long delays, they can still face threats to their life.
Stricter blasphemy laws in Pakistan are so one-sided that once the complaint is made, police arrests the accused without even checking their innocence. Angry crowds, maulanas and supporters do not scrutinise evidence and the trial is lengthy and quite unfair. In fact, we’ve seen that in Pakistan, when someone even opposes strict blasphemy laws, they meet similar fate as the one who are ‘blasphemers’.
Pakistani politician Salman Taseer was assassinated by his bodyguard Mumtaz Qadri for his position on Pakistan’s blasphemy law. he had a somewhat ‘liberal’ stand on Asiya Bibi blasphemy case because he believed a hapless Christian woman should not be executed for ‘blasphemy’. The assassination instantly turned Qadri into a hero, as one would expect from a Jihadist state. He was showered with rose petals as he was dragged into the Court. “Death is acceptable for Muhammad’s slave,” his many supporters chanted.
If law itself says kill them, radicals might kill for glory, as we have seen how terrorism which has no religion but follows religious books works. This stricter laws on blasphemy is only a sure shot way to increase and encourage lynchings and justify it by ‘sacrilege’ or ‘blasphemy’. Pakistan saw it and let it happen, and now Punjab’s AAP MP wants India to follow it.
